The real difference between men and women

I remember reading a column in the Cal Aggie (UC Davis’ school newspaper) about the difference between the way guys and girls treated their birthdays: guys are like, “Oh yeah, my birthday’s this weekend – I’ll invite some people over and buy some beer.”  Then they’re done.  And girls spend all this time obsessing about what it will be like and what they’ll do and what they’ll wear.  Then they spend the whole day thinking, “This is my birthday breakfast!  This is my birthday bus ride to school!  This is my birthday coffee!” and so on and so forth.

I basically embody this principle, with the minor twist that I let myself off a lot of hooks because it happens to be the anniversary of the day I was born.  So it’s all about, “It’s okay if I don’t exercise today” (of course, it helps that I have been in rehearsal all day and we have a show tonight too).  Or, “I can eat a plate of tater tots for lunch,” or “Sorry I’m texting while in line at the bank, but I’ll still just finish up this text while I walk to the next open teller and send it even though normally I would hate when people do that…because it’s my birthday!”  Somehow I assume everyone around me can tell and is also letting me off the hook for my behavior.

I also thought I should get something “nice” for dinner break.  “Nice” meaning a little out of the ordinary, maybe more expensive than usual, maybe just something I wouldn’t usually pick up.  Maybe something Drew doesn’t like that I do!  I went to the grocery store to just look around and see what struck my fancy.  I walked out of the grocery store with a cache of Smart Ones frozen dinners, and one seedless watermelon (which, when I opened it up, turned out to be just okay…not great).  Like, the only food I can think of right now is “sandwiches.”  I can’t even think of what “something nice” would be exactly.  Maybe I should go stroll around Whole Foods and see if there’s anything there, because right now all I’ve got is a frozen ziti marinara and a Tupperware of watermelon chunks.

26 feels exactly like 25, only closer to 30.